Business Continuity Plan and Resilience Engineering

(Consideration for Enhancement of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Based on Case Studies of Great East Japan Earthquake)

Abstract

At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, many socio-technical systems experienced significant damages from the earthquake and tsunami far beyond the preparedness for disasters. Therefore, necessity of Business Continuity Plan (BCP) has been recognized irrespective of domains. Case studies of various on-site responses related to this disaster were analyzed to extract lessons from BCP that is common to various systems. Specifically, in reference to the concept of Resilience Engineering that is focused for enhancing resilience of organizations (i.e. resilience and flexibility) in recent years, analysis was conducted with attention to the cases in which the concerned systems could restore or ensured the safety from disturbance. Lessons useful for disaster prevention and mitigation have been extracted successfully from activities conducted for preparing and responding to the earthquake-driven disturbances.